Archive for January, 2014

First post in a while. Not sure how that happened. I need to spend more time here. ANYWAY…

For the past couple of years, I’ve been taking part in an ever-more popular new trend, which is the 1 Second Everyday project. Every day for one year, I make sure to record something, anything. Then, I cherry-pick my favorite single second out of however much footage I recorded each day and then I put those clips into a timeline in the video editor. Pick some good music to go with it, and voila; a 6-minute video that gives a relatively decent idea of what happened during one’s year. Granted, many of the moments that make the cut will be the personal favorites of the video’s creator, so not every clip’s context makes it through in merely a second, but it still allows the viewers to get lost in the recorded path of another person for a small handful of minutes. It’s a great way to answer that question we’ve all heard ad nauseam, “So what have you been up to lately?” So far, I’ve created 2 of these videos; one for 2012 and one for 2013, the latter of which I posted just yesterday, January 1st 2014. When I began the project in 2012, I thought it would be a fun project to try and keep up with. I started the year off with my DSLR’s and Sigma glass, and within 2 months I bought a GoPro HD Hero 2. I took this thing everywhere. I’m not an extreme athlete by any means, but those cameras are tough to beat as far as build, picture quality, convenience, and so on. By the end of March, I was hooked. I decided I’m going to try to keep this up for as long as I can. The thing about 2012, though, was that there were honestly not really any significant events that occurred, so it became a challenge to mix up the shots enough throughout the year without doing the same thing over and over. It’s virtually impossible to have 365 exciting days in a row, so there’s bound to be slow spots and trouble coming up with ideas. In 2013, however, things changed. Not just because we discovered we were going to be parents, but also because I was afforded an opportunity which allowed me to be home with her during the whole thing, and it was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and it made for some interesting opportunities for video clips. Now, with the arrival of my son this past November, this leaves me with even more opportunities in 2014 and beyond. It’s going to be a fantastic way to see how he grows.

For both videos, I used a pair of Canon EOS 550D’s with a Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 lens and a Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, as well as a GoPro. In 2012 it was an HD Hero 2, and in 2013 it was an HD Hero 3 Black Edition. All editing was done in Sony Vegas 10.0 Pro. Some experimental color grading was done in Photoshop CS5’s RAW Editor. As a sidenote, I started a text file early on in the year to explain certain dates of particular interest or importance and I kept it in the folder with the rest of the project material so that I would remember to update it throughout the year as I slowly constructed the video. This also gave me a chance to keep up with the list of people I needed to tag when I finally posted it.

Both videos feature wonderful music by Harold-Alexis (http://soundcloud.com/Harold-Alexis). 2012 featured his remix of “Souls” by djSaint, while 2013’s video was accompanied by a custom-tailored version of his remix of “Innerspace” by Gregory Esayan. I contacted Alexis early on in 2013 after having auditioned several other tracks for the video with very little luck, and he agreed to help out with providing an extended edition of “Innerspace” specifically for use in “Just A Second 2013”. The result, if I may say, was phenomenal. So here’s a ginormous THANK YOU to Harold-Alexis for lending his talent to the overall feel of this year’s project.